Gordonia species as a rare pathogen isolated from milk of dairy cows with mastitis

While Gordonia species have long been known to cause severe inflammation in humans, the pathogenic effects of Gordonia species in veterinary medicine have rarely been described. Between 2010 and 2019, we collected microorganisms of the genus Gordonia isolated from milk samples from dairy cows with mastitis. We describe the growth properties of these microorganisms and their prevalence, virulence factors and susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. From 31,534 quarter milk samples processed by standard culture methods, 27 isolates of Gordonia species (0.086% prevalence) were identified by a molecular phenotyping method. The isolates originated from 17 farms in 12 districts of the Czech Republic. Twenty-one isolates were tested for susceptibility to 7 antimicrobials by the disc diffusion method. Notably, 100% of these isolates were susceptible to streptomycin and neomycin, 85.7% to cefovecin and tetracycline, 76.2% to penicillin G, 47.6% to trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and 0% to clindamycin. The species was determined to be Gordonia paraffinivorans by whole genome sequencing for 9 isolates (from 8 farms in 7 districts). These isolates showed the highest similarity to two reference strains from the environment. In all these isolates, we identified genes encoding virulence factors that are very similar to genes encoding virulence factors expressed in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium smegmatis. However, genome analysis revealed 61 unique genes in all 9 sequenced isolates.